Brussels, 09/02/2011 (Agence Europe) - On Friday 11 February, the member states of the EU should start to get a clearer picture of the concrete possibilities available to them to ban or limit on their territory the growing of GMOs which are legally authorised within the EU, without the risk of seeing their measures rejected by the Court of Justice of the EU or the WTO (EUROPE 10281). Giving in to their absolute persistence, the Commission will on Friday put before them a list of seven legally “concrete” reasons they can invoke to allow them to exercise this freedom of choice with the required legal certainty. Frédéric Vincent, the spokesperson to John Dalli, Commissioner for Health and Consumer Policy, confirmed this on Wednesday 9 February.
Maintaining public order in the face of the citizens' opposition, reasons related to public morality, the preservation of traditional agricultural practices and natural areas and town and country planning decisions are expected to feature along the seven possible justifications.
This is a victory for the member states because initially John Dalli was not planning to list these arguments, preferring a case-by-case approach. The presentation of this list will allow the EU to make progress on a July proposal to give the member states the freedom of choice, as long as the national banning or limitation measures are not environmental or sanitary in nature, and that prior notice is given to the Commission.
This non-exhaustive list of reasons which can be invoked, which was painstakingly put together (by DGs Sanco, Environment, Agriculture and Trade and the legal services) will take the form of a working document of a Commission staff working group. The experts of the EU27 will have the opportunity to debate the list for the first time on Friday, at the ad hoc Council group on GMOs. But it is not possible at this stage to say whether this list will end up as part of the legislative proposal. “It is too early to say. There are no plans for this for the time being”, said Frédéric Vincent. (A.N./transl.fl)